


Rebuttals

by Natasja



Series: Tumblr and NaNoWriMo prompts [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, Not Iron Man Friendly, Team Cap - Freeform, Tony Stark Is A Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-08-20 04:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 13,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16548485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natasja/pseuds/Natasja
Summary: Since people insist on posting their delusions on Tumblr and other social media, and tagging it so that it shows up in my feed, I'm going to be correcting them.Consider this a kind of 'How (The Dumb Fan Theories) Should Have Ended).





	1. Restraining Orders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets a restraining order against Team Cap. He shouldn't have bothered.
> 
> Inspired by: https://66.media.tumblr.com/e887cc3d2e1f7ba53c11ae7a8b92042e/tumblr_inline_phrh92vQFX1tcsivn_540.png

The district Judge had raised an incredulous eyebrow when Tony asked for a restraining order against Steve and his team (nothing compared to the muttering and sniggers from the other people waiting their turn while Tony sauntered to the front of the queue). Still, the order had been granted, and Tony gloated to himself all the way back to the tower.

Sure, the Rogue Avengers had been pardoned - funny how saving the world put you back in everyone’s good books - but if they thought that they were going to waltz back into Tony’s life like nothing had happened, they had another think coming. It wasn’t that he was genuinely scared of them or considered them a danger to his wellbeing, no matter what sob-story he had told the Judge. It was a reminder of all the things he could have done to them, but didn’t.

He’d go back to the courthouse in a week or two, explain that the matter had been resolved, pay the fee and expect them to be properly grateful.

Who cared that it would make training and missions a logistical nightmare if they were banned from direct communication and couldn’t get within 100 meters of him? What did it matter that clean-up after a mission would be virtually impossible? Tony had a sub-division contracted to take care of that, anyway, and the small businesses who had been put out of work by it weren’t complaining where he could hear them.

Cap’s team hadn’t spent more than a week in the raft, and the humiliation and inconvenience of spending the occasional night at the station would teach them that actions had consequences.

(Sam was a veteran, he wouldn’t need to worry about violence off the police, even if he was a black man and well-trained enough for them to plead 'reasonable fear of danger'.)

Tony looked forward to informing the others of how things were going to be from now on.

* * *

 

The first snag in his brilliant plan came when none of the Rogue Avengers even showed up to Stark Tower, or to the Compound. They didn’t even send so much as a text to say hello. Sure, Tony persisted in thinking of Steve as technologically inept, despite evidence to the contrary, but surely one of the others would have!

The second problem came the next morning, when Stark Industries received notification that Wanda and Bucky had taken out AVOs against HIM! Tony couldn’t go within 200 meters of their person or residence - or send others on his behalf - and, damnit, they had set up their new residence in a former Dojo right next door to his favourite coffee shop!

It was Steve trying to get some kind of petty revenge on him, Tony was sure of it.

Well, fine! If they wanted nothing to do with him, that was their loss!

 

 


	2. Popular reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony leaks footage of the Airport fight scene and the aftermath. It doesn't go quite as he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by: https://himynameisnotslimshadyao3.tumblr.com/post/179561680932/the-people-for-tony-stark

Breaking the internet hadn’t been part of the plan.

Like most of Tony’s ideas, it had seemed like a great idea in the (infinitesimally brief) planning stage, and promptly blew up in all of their faces when put into practice.

* * *

Tony had been angry from the moment Rogers refused to follow Tony’s lead on signing the Accords.  
Couldn’t Rogers see that, for once, there was a face and a name to the innocent victims? That the PR department couldn’t brush Charlie Spencer aside as the ranting of hysterical citizens or blame his death on aliens or collateral damage while saving the world? Someone needed to stand up and take responsibility.  
( _What did it matter that the face belonged to a legal adult from America, rather than the children of Sokovia and Africa and the Middle-East for whom war and Stark-supplied bombs had been everyday reality?)_

Rogers hadn’t disputed any of that, the insufferable golden boy. But he hadn’t agreed with the Accords, either.  
Instead, he’d had the nerve to say that being put under someone else’s command wasn’t a solution, but an excuse. That governments and agendas and the people in charge of them changed. That the highest echelons of the US Government had been infiltrated by HYDRA, and who was to say that the UN wasn’t equally infected.  
Rogers preferred to put his faith in people he knew and trusted, not in some faceless committee with a track record of looking out for their own interests.

Then he’d run off to attend Peggy Carter’s funeral ( _Tony was hurt that he hadn’t been invited, even though all Peggy had been to him was an old friend of his father, and he had stopped visiting after the first time she mistook him for Howard_ ), taking Sam with him, and then there was the bombing that framed Barnes, and the fight at the airport, and Rhodey getting shot down, and then the bunker in Siberia.

The Fight that the Bad Guy had won.  
(Tony wasn’t even sure if he was talking about Zemo or his once-friend as the Bad Guy).

When he had finally struggled out of the Iron Man armour and set it to self-destruct, blowing what was left of the bunker to pieces, and used his watch to send a distress signal, Barnes and Rogers were long gone.

* * *

Building something that would let Rhodey walk and function as normally as possible took up a fair chunk of time - time during which Rogers apparently broke the rest of the team out of the Raft and vanished into thin air - but after that, there was nothing to do except invent more suits and sit and party and seethe.

Partying lost it’s appeal when he couldn’t go anywhere without hearing at least one beautiful celebrity gush about the possibility of getting with the Captain and the Soldier at the same time, and at least a half dozen people, male and female alike, enthusiastically agree.  
He thought about ruining their fun by pointing out how much of a moralizing stick-in-the-mud Rogers was, so he would probably never go for it, but decided against doing so. Half of them would probably consider it a turn on.

Finally, after a day of looking through the internet forums for the groups that supported his side of things, Tony was spurred into action by a community, small but rapidly gaining in numbers, who pointed out that three days to read and sign a set of accords bigger than most encyclopedias was an extremely suspect move. Cap had been right not to sign until he could get a team of lawyers to look it over, they claimed, particularly in terms of how far that UN control extended. How did it affect Civil Rights and Bodily Autonomy, since Steve couldn’t just turn off his enhancements at will, like stepping out of a suit at the end of the day?

Enraged beyond belief that anyone could spout that kind of rubbish, even on the internet, Tony decided to show the world who “Captain America” really was.

He leaked footage of the Lipzeig Airport battle on the internet.

* * *

Less than an hour later, Twitter and Buzzfeed went down, unable to handle the viral traffic, and Facebook and Tumblr were experience serious lag from the amount of shares.  
Even the hype over the latest blockbuster was taking a back-seat, and Tony could almost _hear_ the President throwing a tantrum that not only was he unable to tweet, but the furore over his latest twitter-spree had been thoroughly eclipsed by Tony’s leak.

 _(That would have made Steve smile, sneaky troll of a disabled first-generation immigrant that he had been. The Serum had fixed the ‘disabled’ part, and turned the SJW tendencies up to 11._ )

Tony went to bed happy.

* * *

The next day, his smile was nowhere to be seen.

The Internet had exploded with conspiracies and theories and debates, billions voicing support and condemnation. There was even one extremely far-fetched claim that a few squads had been in the middle of a skirmish in a warzone, which went tits-up after the opposing sides found themselves in agreement on the issue, and in conflict with some of their squad mates, resulting in a very strange stand-off while they argued viewpoints, suddenly in solidarity with men who had been their enemies five minutes ago.

If it was true, there would soon be several generals howling for Tony’s head on a plate even more than they usually did, since he shut down his weapons division. Good times.

Tony had always advocated against reading the comment section, not the least because it tended to result in Steve hijacking the IT department to track IP addresses so he could have Serious Talks with the worst of the internet trolls.   
_(Some of them even posted public apologies afterward. Steve’s “Captain America is Disappointed In You” face was a powerful weapon)_  
This was worse than usual.

About a third of the comments supported Tony, but he frowned when he had FRIDAY cross-reference the supporters, and discovered that many of them were also Trump Supporters, or had an online reputation for spewing hate and threats against anyone who disagreed with them. Not exactly a reputation Tony wanted to cultivate.

Another fifth were the neutral peacekeepers, claiming that there were good points to both arguments, supporting oversight in theory but not the Accords in practice. At least they admitted that they couldn’t come up with a better idea without a lot more research and planning.

The rest of the comments, without reservation, were solidly on Steve’s side.

  
They raged about the privilege of those who could simply take off their enhancements (Tony, Sam, Rhodey, possibly Clint) verses those who had no choice, whose enhancements were part of them, whether by their own choice (Steve, T’Challa) or not (Spiderman and Winter Soldier; Black Widow and Wanda were up for debate). They howled about the Civil Rights violations that let a person be locked up indefinitely and without trial, to have their movements restricted without ever committing a crime.

That wasn’t even the worst of it.

A parent’s group was questioning exactly how old Spiderman was, because he certainly didn’t sound old enough to buy his own alcohol, or even old enough to vote. Tony really hoped that no one else put the pieces together like he had. Spiderman was very much not a legal adult, and words like ‘child soldier’, ‘kidnapping’ and ‘grooming’ being thrown around made him nervous.

The worst was the comments relating directly to the Airport Fight. Even the ones that condemned Cap for not explaining himself were critical of Tony and his team. Most of them slammed Tony outright.

“Why are we supposed to be mad at Team Cap? They did, like, three things that can’t be fixed in a week and were trying to get out of the conflict.”

#IStandWithCap

“Who shoots live missiles at someone they’re supposedly trying to bring in alive? No wonder Captain America didn’t trust them!”

#WhoShootsAnUnarmedParamedic?

"Iron Man and his minions are the ones who did the most damage

#RogueAvengersAreRealAvengers

“OMG IRONMAN SHOT A PARAMEDIC WHO WAS TRYING TO HELP WAR MACHINE!!! WHO DOES THAT???”

“Team Iron Man rendered a major airport unusable for months, and TEAM CAP is the one that got hauled away?”

#CorruptAccords

“Why would ANYONE trust a law supported and written by THUNDERBOLT ROSS? #Morons”

* * *

Slowly, Tony shut off his computer, heading down to his lab.

Internet commentators were idiots, anyway. What did they know, the stupid keyboard warriors? It was all clickbait with them. Tony didn’t want to waste his precious time with them. He didn’t want to get drawn into debate.

He didn’t want to admit that he might have been wrong.

 


	3. Bruce is not on Tony's Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce finds out that Tony agreed with Thaddeus Ross about the treatment of enhanced humans.  
> He is not pleased

 

Bruce huffed, snatched the cell phone away from Tony, and sent a quick text to Steve’s number, warning him of what had happened. A few seconds passed, and then a single word: "Acknowledged".

Then, he pushed Tony into a chair, fixing him with the sternest look he could muster. Admittedly, it wasn’t all that stern; Bruce had never been the confrontational sort, and the Hulk had been badly shaken by the fight with Thanos. 

( _Bruce had searched for years for a way to shut the Other Guy away permanently, but now that it seemed a distinct possibility that the Hulk would refuse to come out, he felt ind of sad and regretful. The Hulk had kept him alive on Sakaar, saved his life against forces that would have crushed Dr Banner in a heartbeat… maybe the Other Guy wasn’t the curse Bruce had believed.)_

Now, the world was going to hell in a handbasket, and Tony was being evasive. He felt that perhaps the circumstances warranted a bit of aggression. He needed answers, and there wasn’t time to coddle Tony’s fragile ego.

Not when Thor was drifting God knew where in space, lost and possibly dead. Not when Asgard had been massacred by beings more powerful than anyone would have known, who were probably headed for Earth as they spoke.

Broken or united, if there was ever a time for the Avengers to assemble, it was now.

* * *

Part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had happened to break up the Avengers.

Had Steve finally got fed up of Tony sniping at him? Was it the fallout from Ultron, which Bruce still felt guilt over helping Tony with? Another mess like when HYDRA was revealed to be hiding in plain sight?

Bruce didn’t want to know, but he had the feeling that he needed to. “Tony, what happened?”

Tony didn’t meet his eyes. “Differences of opinion, and Steve and his buddies broke the law.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. He didn’t doubt that Steve would cheerfully flout an unjust law, and probably prompt the lawmakers to take a closer look at said law in the process, but of the two, Tony was the one who tended to break laws and buy his way out of the consequences. “Stop trying to evade, Tony. What happened.”

Dr Strange, whose ego seemed to match Tony’s, rolled his eyes, butting in without being asked. “The Sokovia Accords happened.”

Bruce wasn’t keen on the Sorcerer’s attitude, but at least someone was willing to give answers. “And those would be what? Assume I’ve been off-planet for the past few years.”

Dr Strange looked briefly intrigued, but brushed it off. “Registration and regulation of Superheroes and enhanced humans, approved by 117 countries and spearheaded by Thaddeus Ross. Theoretically, it was meant for the Avengers and other enhanced to require UN oversight to operate, after the mess with Ultron and Sokovia.”

Bruce winced. Working in India and other parts of the world, he knew exactly how slow-moving and self-interested the UN could be. Not to mention that anything ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross approved of was probably rife with Human and Civil Rights abuse, partisan interest, and a disaster in the making. “And, you disbanded because you saw the problems with that and refused to become Ross’s attack dogs?”

That made him feel a lot better, even if it make things harder and shortened their timeframe. Dr Strange shook his head, a malicious gleam in his eye. “Stark, here, agreed to them, and broke them less than a day later. The Captain, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Ant-Man refused, claiming that the Accords didn’t provide oversight, but shifted the blame. They were right, since the people in charge of enforcing the Accords issued a kill on sight order for Bucky Barnes and locked half of them up without due process.”

Bruce felt rage and betrayal fill him and… oh, dear. Well, at least the Hulk wasn’t hiding in a corner anymore.   
Oddly, the two of them were far more in tune than they had ever been, united in outrage. Perhaps this was the way forward. His grew and turned green, but the Hulk didn’t completely take over his mind.

The shouting, however, managed to be even louder than the Hulk’s usual voice, verging on a roar.

“YOU SIDED WITH THADDEUS ROSS? AFTER EVERYTHING HE DID? AFTER HE HUNTED ME??? HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF MY FRIEND, AND PULL THAT SHIT?”

Tony shrank back in his seat. “Look, we needed to be put in check, and this was the best way…”

Bruce/Hulk cut him off with a snarl. “DON’T TALK TO ME LIKE WE’RE FRIENDS AND YOU CARE ABOUT ME! I’LL DEAL WITH YOU LONG ENOUGH TO SAVE THE WORLD, BUT WE ARE SO DONE, TONY!”

Dr Strange cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt, but…”

He gestured outside, where a battle was raging. With one last, furious glare, Bruce/Hulk stalked out. He would kick these guys back to wherever they came from, then he could kick Tony’s arse for good measure.

 

 


	4. Terms and conditions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even for Peggy, Steve couldn't let injustice slide.
> 
> In which Steve reads the Accords, and is not interested in a 'Both Sides Are Valid' debate on Human Rights Violations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Cornholio4, who sent me the prompt.

 

  


 

Steve had never been stupid, and had always been good at remembering everything he read. The serum had only enhanced that trait, speeding up his already-formidible reading and comprehension abilities.

Years of loving his country and the strict moral code his mother had instilled in him taught Steve that the wellbeing of the people should be prioritised. The army had taught him the importance of a chain of command and orders.  
Hard experience had taught him that one good officer in a chain of command didn’t mean that the rest of the chain was equally honourable, and that governments didn’t always have public wellbeing as their top priority. And that experience had come _before_ HYDRA had been exposed as having infiltrated... well, everything.

When he got a chance to catch his breath after the Chitauri invasion, Steve had read up on the strange new world he had arrived in. One overarching message he had discovered was that a loft of concepts that seemed like good ideas, had quickly failed when they refused to update with the times, or became subject to partisan interests. How much of that was due to HYDRA influence was up for debate, but it left Steve more than a touch leery of trusting without question.  
The UN was no exception. 

Sure, they had the approval of a little over half the countries in the world, but there were only five countries with permanent council seats capable of making or denying big decisions. All of those countries had human rights abuses somewhere in their recent history.  
On top of that, Steve read of the Rwanda genocide, of UN inaction and the Council countries decision to look away, or worse, actively assist. Steve read of the UN’s refusal to impose sanctions for fear of offending a government whose decisions deserved condemnation. Of indecision, of delay, of refusing to send aid to those desperately in need, of restricting what aid they did send.

Those were not people that Steve trusted to decide whether or not the Avengers needed to be somewhere, and certainly not in a situation where time was of the essence.

Sokovia had been a disaster of epic proportions, and perhaps it had been enough to galvanise the world into action. Steve pulled to copy of the accords over to his side of the table, and started reading.

* * *

 

Less than a page in, Steve needed to grab a highlighter pen and start marking paragraphs of concern. It took a lot to rattle Captain America, but the Sokovia Accords were, in a word, terrifying.

No right to a trial, to legal representation or presumption of innocence. No difference between those who chose their enhancment, those who were born that way, and those who had it forced upon them. Indefinate detainment, restriction of movement without committing a crime... it was as though the writers had gone down the list of nearly every human right, and decided that they no longer applied to enhanced humans.   
Any country that was a signatory to the accords could request the Avengers for any reason, and the Avengers would have no say in whether or not to comply, relying on a committee that they would have no say in electing to safeguard their interests.   
 _(Steve could practically hear Ross trading political favours for the right to be on that committee. It wasn’t a good thought.)_  
Any country could refuse to have the Avengers on their soil, and it would be granted without question, regardless of the circumstances. If one of them was in need of immediate medical attention and the closest available resources were in a country that didn’t want them there, if one of them wanted to visit a friend or attend an event as a private citizen, if a minority group fearing for their lives asked for help against their government’s wishes... it didn’t matter.

The Avengers might as well disband right now, rather than wait to be disbanded and arrested when the Accords backfired beyond tolerance.

* * *

 

Steve closed the Accords and looked around at his team-mates.

Sam and Rhodey were busy arguing about whether to trust Ross as the authority on the Accords. It made Steve almost glad that Bruce wasn’t here, or he would have Hulked out well before now.  
Wanda was looking distinctly unhappy, having more experience with government intervention (especially from foreign powers) gone wrong. Natasha was hard to read, as she usually was, but seemed almost resigned. Tony was silent, wearing a mulish expression that said he had already made up his mind on everyone’s behalf, but hadn’t bothered to enlighten the rest of them or ask their opinons. Steve mentally braced himself for a fight, then looked down as his phone chimed. _Peggy_...  
He stood abruptly. “I’m not signing this without some serious amendments, and definitely not within the next week. I have a funeral to go to.”

Tony stiffened in indignation, outrage clear even from across the room. “The UN is meeting in three days, how can you insist on a delay?”

It was a perfect opening. Steve flipped open the accords and pointed to the relevant paragraph. “Peggy’s funeral is in the UK, and I’m not waiting for a UN committee to decide whether or not I can be there to say goodbye. I’m also not willing to live in a cell at their leisure because I didn’t wait on their permission to leave my listed home address.”

Rhodey stopped protesting that Ross was worthy of respect because of how many medals he had, while Sam reached for the accords again. Tony’s stubborn expression flickered, then returned full force. “So you have to ask permission to travel. What’s the big deal?”

 _Everyone_ sent Tony an incredulous look at that statement. Steve tried not to grit his teeth. “That science convention you want to go to in Eastern Europe? Forget it. Party in Malibu? You still need to ask permission, because that’s not your primary address. Demoing a new Stark product? Better hope that a competitor doesn’t have the ear of the committee, or you’ll never even get off the ground.”

He looked a little uncertain, but rallied. “I can pay a simple fine...”

Steve shook his head. “Page 94, paragraph F. Repeated violations, and they sieze your assets. Public, private, even patents filed... all now owned by the UN, because clearly a lawbreaker can’t be trusted with their own property.”

Tony turned an impressive shade of purple, and Steve walked toward the stairs. “We can always come out of retirement, but trying to get something revised after you’ve signed it is almost impossible. I’ll leave you to finish reading and think it over.”

He had a friend to mourn. Dealing with idiotic governments who demanded respect without earning it could wait until later.


	5. "Spider-son"? No thanks!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has FEELINGS about being Ghosted and then blamed when he didn't have all the facts.  
> He's a teenager, ok? He's allowed to be an angsty drama queen once in a while!
> 
> Based off: https://rapture-family-official.tumblr.com/post/179978148472/i-dont-understand-why-peter-is-written-as-tonys

Was it universal to look back on past actions and long for a time machine to go back, slap yourself, and tell your past-self to wake up and get a clue?

Peter, better known to most of the world as Spider-Man, really hoped so, because otherwise, he was going to have to acknowledge himself as the world’s biggest moron. The suit upgrade was cool, he could admit, but… Tony Stark, at his core, was not so different from Flash.

The Billionaire Genius was kind of arrogant, so determined to be right that he would ignore all evidence to the contrary, and got defensive and mad when someone tried to call him out. 

Peter wished he had known all of this before the whole mess with the Accords, before Tony ghosted him, before he nearly died because his requests for help went ignored and unanswered and he thought he was the only one able to stop something that was out of his league.

And then Tony just had to go and make it all about him. Again.

Peter was happy about not dying while trying to stop the Vulture and his Terrorists, but he had gone into the fight with his eyes open (unlike the airport battle in Germany). If he had died, that would have been on Peter, and no-one else. 

Dying because on bad intel, because Tony refused to actually tell him anything, because he had a suit with so many extra features that Peter _prayed_ he would never have to use… Yeah, that would be on Mr Stark. Dying because he wanted to protect innocent people? That was Peter, and Iron Man had no right to try to take that away from him.

Perhaps it was petulant and childish of him, to refuse to return Tony’s calls or accept Mr Hogan’s apology, the same way they had ignored him. Perhaps he should try to be the bigger person. Peter found that he didn’t care.

He was still in High School, damnit! He was entitled to be an angsty teenager on occasion! _Especially_ when Mr Stark did a 180 from ignoring him to suddenly wanting him on the Avengers Roster when Peter turned out to be right and saved everyone’s ass.

Maybe Captain America had been right all along.

There was a lot going on that Peter didn’t understand, didn’t even know existed, and it was time to change that.

* * *

 

When he returned home, Peter wondered whether to be surprised or concerned when he found a burner phone and a hand-written note lying on his bed.

 _Spiderman_ , it read,

_This probably comes off as creepier than I intended, but I asked Widow to keep an eye out. The Accords are bad news, and no matter how much Tony wants to be right on this one, he isn’t._

_If you need help, even if it’s just someone to talk to, call. I’ll answer_

_Steve Rogers._

* * *

 

Ho-ly wow.

Captain America knew - or at least, suspected - that he was new at the whole Superhero business, and cared enough about him to offer help if he needed it.

That was more than Mr Stark had ever done.

Peter picked up the phone. “Hi. Um, I don’t know if you remember me…”

He could almost hear the warm smile in Captain America’s voice. “Spiderman. How are you holding up?”

Peter barely held in a groan. He didn’t want to dump all of his problems on a relative stranger, but something about the First Avenger made him so easy to talk to. “Kinda good, kinda bad. Is this a bad time?”

His super-hearing picked up the rustle of someone sitting down, a slight pause when a softly-accented voice asked who it was, and - “Don’t worry, it’s not Tony, and even he can’t track us through this.”

The accented voice seemed relieved, which made Peter feel slightly guilty. So, the other voice had some bad history, too. Peter didn’t want that to make him feel better. Captain America’s voice returned to the phone. “I’ve got time, kid. I may have to dash if there’s an emergency, but I promise to tell you first.”

Again, more than Iron Man had done for him.

Peter bit his lip. “There was a guy, doing bad things, and I stopped him. But… I know his family, and they’re going through a bad time that they don’t deserve, and I feel like it’s my fault…”

Captain America turned out to be a great listener, and gave good advice. Maybe, once he wasn’t an international fugitive, Peter could ask him about maybe being a mentor.

 

 


	6. Tony uses the Gauntlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An answer to MedusaStone's request

From a request on AO3: “I don't know if you're taking requests, but if you are, I'd really like to see your take on "Tony uses the Infinity Gauntlet and fixes everything".

 

* * *

 

 

All around him, the people who had fought Thanos, were picking themselves up and seeking their friends.

Thor stood by Jane Foster and Wong, both of whom looked utterly exhausted. Jane had - somehow - rigged a machine that piggybacked off the Infinity Gauntlet, letting them access the stones. After Dr Strange, Wong had the most experience with the Time Stone, and Jane had intimate experience with the Aether, the Spirit Stone. Working together, they managed to bring back the people who had originally died fighting Thanos.  
Loki and Dr Strange were standing nearby, glaring at each other and clearly trying to avoid admitting that they owed the scientist and librarian their thanks. 

T’Challa was unsuccessfully trying to extract himself from the clutches of his mother, sister and lover. Shuri had proved herself a competent queen, but it was obvious that her heart was in science and inventing, not in leadership and ruling.

Tony, for his own part, was trying to avoid looking at the final section.of people he knew.  

Steve stood with Sam and Bucky, outwardly calm and commanding, but his emotions clear to those who knew him, in the way he joked, in the grip on their shoulders that was a little too tight, almost desperate. Rhodey was there, too, equally glad to see Sam alive and well.

Near them, Wanda and Vision were tightly wrapped in each others’ arms, and didn’t look to be letting go any time soon.

Only Tony stood alone. Partially because Spiderman’s attractive aunt was shooting him not-so-attractive murderous glares as she fussed over her nephew, along with two of his friends. Tony would have gone over to check on the kid, but he was worried that May would grab the nearest solid object and try to beat him to death with it.

* * *

The Infinity Gauntlet lay at his feet, all six stones still in their settings. 

It would be so easy to go back and fix everything so that it never happened. So no-one would be glaring at him and blaming him for Earth’s lack of warning the first time around. So his one-time friends didn’t avoid him. So Barnes had never killed his mother. So he didn’t have to deal with his allies deciding, one by one, that Steve’s position on the Accords had been correct. So he didn’t have to admit that he had been wrong.

The Gauntlet was right there, and it would be so easy.

Tony picked it up, the Iron Man armour retreating so that he could slip the gem-studded weapon on.

Tony raised his hand, and the world slid out of focus.

 

* * *

  

Bucky Barnes never became the Winter Soldier, slowly freezing to death in a frozen valley, his body found months later by a the Howling Commandos, wanting to bring at least one of their lost friends home.

But HYDRA had many assassins, and it didn’t stop the people that the Bucky from another universe had killed from being murdered anyway.

The other assassins were just far less merciful about it.

Enough of Bucky had remained, even through the worst of the program, that his kills were quick and clean, and he did his best to kill rather than capture, knowing the torture and slow death that awaited HYDRA prisoners.

The Tony of the world where the Winter Soldier never existed threw up when he saw his mother’s body, and again when he hacked into the police files for the autopsy report.  
Maria Stark had broken several bones when the car crashed. HYDRA had broken more, and forced her husband to watch as the beat her, burned her, and worse. Then they forced the couple back into the car, jammed the doors, and set it on fire, laughing at the screaming and desperate pleas.

HYDRA still stole the Serum, still created five more Winter Soldiers, and took down most of Europe and all of the USA before being brought to a screeching halt when they started on Australia.

If that continent’s current wildlife was terrifying, the Megafauna of ages past, and an Enhanced who could temporarily summon them from the time when they were dominant - and control them - was infinitely worse.   
Guided by human intelligence, even the Winter Soldiers couldn’t stand up to that.

 

* * *

 

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were never recruited by SHIELD/HYDRA, dying in the same building as their parents, when a bomb with Stark written on the side went off, ending the lives of ten-year-old twins, who felt only relief that after hiding under a bed for two days, clinging to each other as they stared Death in the face, the dreadful anticipation was over.

The rescue crews, only minutes away from breaking through the rubble to rescue them, were not so fortunate.

 

Tony still used the sceptre to create Ultron, who still killed JARVIS and took over the internet. The independent AI still decided to destroy the world, and Sokovia was only the first.

Without company to distract him and make him wonder if parts of the world might be worth saving, Ultron had longer to plan, and more fail-safes. Without Wanda to discover Ultron’s real plan and warn the Avengers, they rescued Natasha... and had a front-row seat to the destruction as Sokovia was turned into the equivalent of a planet-killing comet, 

 

* * *

In a world where Tony never pushed to reform the Avengers, they went their seperate ways. With only Black Widow and Falcon by his side, even Captain America could only do so much against HYDRA. without the resources and contacts of SHIELD or Stark Industries to provide and analyse information, having to rely on normal transport rather than Quinjets, they were forced to move slower, and HYDRA made far more progress in their weapons and experiments. Their resurgence was only a matter of time, and when all the parts of the world that HYDRA thought valuable was conquered, they slowly turned on themselves.

When Thanos came to conquor Earth, only Wakanda, with it’s technology and isolation shielding them from the fallout, was left to stand against them. Without warning and without reinforcements, even the majority of their warriors having been enhanced by the Heart-Shaped Herb was not enough for them to defeat Thanos and his forces.

 

* * *

 On a Battlefield in Wakanda, Steve pulled the Infinity Gauntlet off Tony’s unresisting hand, fixing him with his annoyingly-effective Disappointed Look as Tony came out of the visions, unbelievably glad that it was only visions, rather than reality, that he had witnessed.

The Dora Milaje and War Dogs escorted him to the border, warning him not to return without invitation, and Tony’s last glimpse of the friends he wanted back was of them working together to dismantle the Gaunntlet and destroy the stones.

 


	7. Justification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone actually tried to claim that Tony had to point out to Wanda, in Civil War, that collateral damage is unacceptable.  
> Yeah, I'm sure that the war orphan who lost her entire family as "collateral damage" had NO IDEA...

“People got hurt because of us!”

Wanda had been gritting her teeth through Tony’s argument, but bit her tongue in the hopes that Steve could talk him down, or Vision’s practicality would win through.   
Vision had come down on Tony’s side, and Iron Man seemed to be taking Steve’s entirely logical arguments as a personal affront. So, Wanda spoke up. “And what brought you to this sudden realisation?”

Tony paused halfway through another weak statement, thrown off track. “What?”

Under other circumstances, Wanda would have felt slightly bad about the things she was about to say. Not now, not with Tony Stark deciding that he knew best, and forcing his guilt on the rest of them. “Your Jericho missile would have caused nearly as much damage, when it was aimed at a populated city instead of a hillside. You were not Iron Man when a Stark Bomb destroyed my home and killed my parents, but the bombs continued to fall for years afterward, and you did nothing.”

 _Now_ , Tony looked at Steve, as if expecting him to command Wanda to sit down and stop talking. Steve only raised an eyebrow and folded his arms, leaning back in his chair. Tony opened his mouth to give the command himself, and Captain America held up a hand. “You’ve given your opinion, Tony. Let Wanda speak hers.”

Wanda had lumped Captain America in with the Avengers at first, to be defiled in effigy and hated as enforcers of corruption. She was glad to be mistaken, when he listened to her warnings of Ultron’s plan, and refused to hold her mistakes against her. She focused on Tony again. “You didn’t care about consequences when you created Ultron. Yes, I sided with him when I thought his plan was to take you down and help us get Sokovia out from the control of people who only cared about enforcing how they thought things should be, to help us rise from the dirt that the UN and USA forces kept crushing us into. As soon as I discovered his real plan, I joined you to take him down. You didn’t care about rebuilding Sokovia or making amends then. Why now?”

Tony seized on the first part of her statement, completely ignoring the rest. “Exactly, that’s _why_ we need to be put in check…” 

Wanda cut him off. “No, it’s why you need to start talking to the people you work with, instead of making snap decisions and expecting us to go along with them. If you wanted to make amends, you could have donated arc reactors to the countries your bombs destroyed, or even just to the programs that give aid, but struggle to maintain shelters or hospitals because of the scarcity of electricity. You could have focused research on how to improve their quality of life or how to cheaply and effectively clean water and grow food. You did none of that in the eight years that you were Iron Man. Why do you care now?”

Finally, Tony snapped. “Because Charles Spencer’s mother confronted me and accused me of killing her son! Innocent people died because we were careless, and we can’t keep doing that!”

Wanda sighed, the anger draining out of her to be replaced with disappointment. She had hoped that Tony had a genuine reason beyond misplaced guilt. But it was just more of his refusal to face consequences and think beyond himself. “You care because you discovered that an American boy died, not because you realised how many thousands of innocent foreigners were affected by your… by our actions. Just like your beginnings as Iron Man, you didn’t care until it affected you.”

Tony looked supremely uncomfortable, taking a more defensive pose. “I didn’t know what my weapons were doing.”

Sam interjected with a scoff. “You built missiles and bombs, what did you _think_ they were going to be used for? Invitations to a tea party?” 

Steve sent him a reproachful look and gestured to Wanda. Sam inclined his head. “Sorry, didn’t mean to talk over you.”

He sat down again, and Wanda faced Tony Stark squarely. “I tell you now, I won’t even consider signing this until you can look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong that you’re only considering this because of Charles Spencer, and it wouldn’t have occurred to you otherwise.”

 


	8. Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not quite a rebuttal, more of an Age of Ultron missing scene.

Steve found Wanda standing at the edge of a barge, gazing over the ruins of her homeland. He approached her, slowly. Wanda had gone through a great deal of shock, not the least of which was the loss of her last remaining family.

She did not turn to look at him when he joined her. “Please do not say you are sorry for my loss or that you understand. I have heard that too much today, and I am not the only one who has lost.”

Steve nodded. “I won’t try and make you talk. Just… I know how it feels to lose the one person who was always there for you, to have the world change in what seems like a heartbeat. If you need someone to listen, or just company, all you have to do is ask.”

Wanda inclined her head, slow and hesitant. Steve changed the subject. “Do you have anywhere to go?”

Wanda shrugged. “I’ve lived on the streets before, I will survive doing so again, at least until what passes for our government comes up with a plan for what to do with us.”

Steve nodded, not happy with the idea, but knowing that it had to be Wanda’s choice. “If you want, you can come back with us. We’ve got more than enough room, and the Avengers definitely aren’t perfect, but if you feel like you need to do something, we might prove an ok start.”

Wanda bit her lip. “I need to think about it. I… I don’t know how to make decisions for just myself, yet.”

Steve’s heart went out to her, understanding what she meant. Wanda had never before had to make a choice without factoring Pietro into the equation, and now she faced a lifetime of doing just that. He placed a hand on her shoulder, “Take your time, and the offer of accommodation is still open, even if you don’t become an Avenger.”

Wanda swallowed, hard, and threw herself into his arms. Steve held her as she shuddered, her quiet, hitching breaths all the tears she was yet able to express. He stroked her hair, providing whatever comfort he could, and made a mental promise to be there for her, whatever she needed.

 


	9. Batman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone ACTUALLY posted this ask in complete seriousness:
> 
> "Bruce (Wayne) could really step into Pepper's role and be Tony's support. Bruce could pay for Tony to get some good quality therapy, then he could be there whenever Tony needs him. Bruce could invite Tony to live with him, then Alfred could keep an eye on him while Bruce is running his company. Then Bruce could leave the Hero stuff to Damien and stay with Tony at night. Over time, Tony would get better."

Bruce Wayne stared at his 10 o’clock appointment, wishing he could revert to being Batman long enough to Death Glare the idiot into submission. “You want me to what?”

Really, from their business correspondence, he had thought Ms Potts was intelligent. But an intelligent person wouldn’t have said what Bruce thought she had just said. Perhaps he had heard her wrong, even the Batman could mis-hear things sometimes.

To her credit, Ms Potts looked embarrassed, as though she knew just how absurd it sounded. “I - I don’t mean that you should move in or give up your activities in Gotham or anything. Just - Tony needs someone who understands, and you’re a genius billionaire who can relate much better than anyone else whose whereabouts I still know.”

* * *

Bruce had SO MANY things he wanted to say about that, none of which he could voice without blowing his secret identity. 

Yes, he was a genius and a billionaire only slightly less wealthy than Tony Stark, despite personally funding several dozen charities. But their money had been made and spent in very different ways. Both had inherited a sizeable fortune from fathers who worked to build it up, but that was where the similarity ended.

Tony invented weapons, each more destructive than the last, without paying attention to who bought them and why, or doing anything to help the innocents whose lives were devastated as a result. He hosted wild parties, with no purpose other than to sleep with as many women as possible and discover new and creative ways to get black-out drunk or high. He invented whatever took his fancy, just to prove that he could, even when there was no (good) use for it.   
He could have sponsored every child in America to go to collage, paid for a free hospital in every state, used his clean energy to support international aid in third-world countries, or assist developing nations struggling to maintain themselves.  
Tony Stark didn’t.

Bruce hosted charity balls and galas. He invested in scientific and medical research, in orphanages and free hospitals. He sponsored programs to help criminals not reoffend. He hired the best and brightest in the mental health field in the hopes that someday, the residents of Arkham Asylum could be released, without him having to fight them a month later. Everything he did as Bruce Wayne was in the hope that someday, he could take off the cowl, that Bruce Wayne could just be Bruce Wayne, and Batman could be laid to rest in a better world.  
Bruce was also the father of a ten-year-old boy, and Damien was arrogant and entitled enough, thanks to his mother and grandfather, _without_ exposing him to Tony Stark.

Not to mention his other sons. Bruce was slowly rebuilding his relationships with Tim and Dick, but if he agreed to Pepper’s suggestion to prioritise Tony, when time and again he had put his own sons needs behind that of the Mission... Tim would never talk to him again, and he’d be lucky if Nightwing didn’t move to a different _continent_ to get away from him. Alfred would never forgive him if Bruce caused him to miss out on meeting Nightwing and Starfire’s upcoming baby, and the mere thought of his butler/father’s reaction was enough to make Bruce shudder.

* * *

Ms Potts was starting to fidget anxiously, and Bruce forced himself to reply politely. “I am afraid I must refuse. I have a son who is at a delicate stage of transitioning into my care, and I can’t take on Mr Stark at the same time. If you like, I’d be happy to recommend a number of trustworthy and highly qualified therapists...”

Bruce had worked with several of them. Some he employed to help criminals transition back to civilian life. Others he had seen in a more personal capacity, after Tim had been kidnapped by the Joker and Dr Thomson had stated in no uncertain terms that he needed a professional’s help. After Jason had been murdered and his refusal to face his guilt had driven Dick to another city to get away from him, had made his angry and hurting oldest son cut off contact for years. 

It hadn’t been easy, by any stretch of the imagination. Bruce had hated the feeling of helplessness, the lost of control and the memory of the mind-numbing terror of an 8-year-old boy who discovered that even if you were a good person, bad things still happened to you. The relief that the Joker was dead, and the guilt of having killed him for what he did to Tim, even if the Joker deserved it a thousand times over.  
But it had been worth it. Dick had reached out when he saw that Bruce was acknowledging his errors and trying to change. Tim followed his lead and managed to open up about what he had suffered, both to the therapist and his family. 

And if there was ever someone in dire need of a therapist, it was Tony Stark.

But Ms Potts was biting her lip and shaking her head. “Tony is... quite resistant to the idea of therapy. Believe me, I’ve suggested it more than once.”

Bruce folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “If he won’t listen or open up to a professional, why would I expect to have any better luck? Good day, Ms Potts. I look forward to our next business meeting.”

It was a clear dismissal, and Bruce was relieved that she took it as such.  
He couldn’t fault her for wanting to help. It was clear in her body language that she wanted to help someone she cared for, but had reached the limits of what she could do, and was looking for help.

Diana had worn the same expression when she tried to help him, and Bruce still thanked the gods she believed in that she hadn’t let him push her away as he had tried so hard to do.

Bruce wished he could help her, but Tony Stark had to be willing to help himself, first.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while to actually write this without screaming incoherently with rage.
> 
> Tony Stans really just want Tony to be a woobified child, don't they? It's kind of scary how they want characters that Tony isn't even associated with to drop everything and treat him like a china doll, despite the multiple negative consequences to literally everyone else.
> 
> Do they think that Tony would be in Wayne Manor for more than five minutes before he tried to hack into the mainframe? From what (admittedly little) I know about Damien, he still has a way to go before Batman would trust him to patrol alone, much less take over being Batman. It's not his fault, but the kid was raised by assassins and psychopaths, and his moral compass is kinda screwed. Not to mention that with as many times as Batman has been forced to put the needs of his loved ones behind the needs of the mission, he's not about to drop everything for a total stranger.


	10. Sides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone requested Spiderman finding out what the accords actually meant for him.
> 
> Someone else requested Team Cap finding out how old Peter is, and their reactions.

“Look, kid, there’s a lot going on that you don’t understand.”

The young-sounding Spiderman perched in that odd crouch “Mr Stark said that you’d say that.”

Steve managed not to grit his teeth. Tony signed the accords, which had not included this Spiderkid (if he was older than Wanda, still months away from her 21st birthday, Steve would eat Bucky’s arm) when Steve saw it, and then promptly went out and recruited someone. Steve dodged a web aimed for his legs. “Did Tony tell you what the accords are actually about? What they mean for you?”

Spiderman hesitated, which told Steve everything he needed to know, and he wondered when Tony had become the kind of person who would manipulate a young and inexperienced Super into something like the accords, without telling him what he was in for. “Well… Iron Man supports them, so how bad could it be?”

As soon as the Winter Soldiers were dealt with, Steve was leaking the post-Battle reports of the Ultron fiasco onto the internet, which he did, in fact, know how to use.  Let Tony experience the ire of social media, instead of dumping it on literally everyone else. “It means registration. Everything about you - your name, family and associates, the nature of your enhancement, your powers - written on a public database. It means travel restrictions, bypassing of civil rights, and all the laws and exemptions that should never have been passed in the name of fighting terrorism now apply to you.”

Spiderman halted mid-swing, nearly slamming into the support of a passenger walkway. “They - it what? How - that can’t be legal!”

If Steve got the chance, he was going to give Tony the mother of all black eyes for doing this. “They shouldn’t be, and that’s why I won’t sign. Me and the others, we didn’t come here to pick a fight, we came to stop five more winter soldiers far worse than Bucky ever was from being activated by the man who was actually behind the Vienna bombing. The longer we waste time trying to make Tony listen, the more of a head-start that man gets.”

Spider Man looked out at the rest of the fight, still fairly equal. “Can I switch sides? I can’t - I won’t endanger the last of my family by getting the listed. I just wanted to keep my neighbourhood safe, until Mr Stark showed up I never even thought about doing more than that.”

Steve quickly analysed the possibilities. Tony and Rhodes were the most destructive, but they weren’t aiming to kill. Prince T’Challa was far less restrained. Vision… was probably the biggest threat, but followed Tony’s lead, and Natasha was using that cagy attitude that usually meant a long-game plan. “Web up T’Challa. Then… just how spiderweb-like is that stuff? Strength, stickiness, all that?”

Steve could practically feel Spiderman beam, even through the full-face cowl, the impression of an eager-to-please teenager all that much stronger. “Strong enough to catch that bus earlier. The stickiness wears off in about five minutes, but it’ll hold pretty much anything.”

Steve nodded. “Good. I’ll have Falcon lure the flyers into a chase, you be ready to catch them in a web.”

Steve darted out from cover, signalling Bucky, then hailed Sam, explaining the plan. His oldest friend changed tactics, running toward him, the Crown Prince in hot pursuit. As promised, Spiderman encased him in silk, then threw up a massive web between  two shipping containers as Sam flew past. The impact of Tony and Rhodes, seconds apart, tore the web off it’s foundations, leaving the two of them hopelessly entangled. 

Steve signalled his team again, scooping Wanda into his arms as the red light of her powers encased Vision, holding him in place. Spiderman made a suspiciously fanboy-like noise as Steve carried her to the Quinjet without even breaking stride.

* * *

Wanda held up the immobilisation until they were safely out of range, then dropped it, slumping against Steve’s side in exhaustion.

Relaxing, Steve turned his attention to Spiderman. “We don’t have time to drop you off, but we won’t ask you to fight with us in Siberia. We signed up for this, you didn’t.”

Spiderman pulled off his cowl, and the Quinjet lurched as Sam almost slammed on the breaks. “Good grief, kid, just how old are you?”

Spiderman squirmed, looking guilty. “I told Mr Stark I had homework.”

Clint looked angrier than any of them had ever seen him. “Mission first, then I’m going back and tearing Stark a new one.”

He pulled out a phone, sending a quick text, most likely to his wife, as Scott shook his head, looking equally disgusted. “I don’t think much of Stark, but I expected him to be above child soldiers. My Cassie is allowed to play with Antony and sneak him treats under the table, but nothing like this!”

Bucky tilted his head. “Who are…?”

Scott grinned proudly. “My six-year-old daughter and the giant ant she decided is even better than a pony. I’m constantly worried that she’ll want to become a Superhero when she’s 18 and I can’t legally stop her.”

Spiderman frowned. “You don’t think she’d make a good partner?”

Scott shook his head. “She’d be an amazing partner, but I’d be a terrible parent if I let her endanger herself like that.”

Wanda shook her head. “Even HYDRA, when it was disguised as SHIELD, didn’t try to recruit Pietro and I until we were 18.”

Steve recovered his voice. “New plan. Spiderman, you are staying in the Quinjet when we get to Siberia. If anyone who isn’t us comes out of the bunker, you take off and don’t come back until we call you. Sam, can you give him a basic flying lesson?”

Sam nodded, still looking furious. “Get up here, kid. I’ll pre-program the flight, and all you’ll need to do is push a few buttons.”

Steve managed to relax again, if only fractionally. Tony had _better_ not come near him for _at least_ a week, or Steve would not be held responsible for the beat-down he was going to deliver.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say whatever you want, Peter Parker was a child soldier, and woefully unprepared for the Airport battle. Yes, he held up well, but Tony DID NOT have his guardian's permission to take Peter out of the country, and small-time crooks are not the trained fighters that Peter was up against.   
> Furthermore, NO ONE EXCEPT TONY knew how young Peter was, so they didn't go easy on him, because how were they supposed to know that this was a high-school kid?   
> The thing that made me Team Cap in Civil War? Everyone on Team Cap knew what they were doing, knew the consequences, and were given a chance to back out. Peter was afforded none of that.


	11. Mntis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a Tumblr prompt that tried to claim that Mantis thought Tony was amazing and hated Wanda

Mantis felt RAGE, because she now knew what it was to have free will, and to care about people. She knew what it was to truly _**feel**_ emotion, not just identify it in others.

Mantis had watched, vaguely saddened but unaffected, as Ego brought child after child, and slaughtered them because they did not have the power he wanted. Mantis had not known those children, and at the time, had not known what it was to feel emotion on her own behalf. 

Mantis had felt apprehension when Peter arrived, because Peter did have the power Ego craved.

But Peter had morals, and lines he was not willing to cross, and the Guardians welcomed Mantis into their crew and their hearts, and for a time, all was well.

* * *

 

Then Thanos found the locations of the Infinity Stones, and carved a bloody path through the galaxy to get them. 

Mantis met Thor, who was strong and brave and willing to sacrifice himself to save others. She met Peter, equally brave and self-sacrificing, who reminded her of Ego’s murdered children, brought into the spotlight by a man who saw what he could give, and overlooked the person beneath. She met Dr Strange, abrupt and impatient and focused on protecting the universe, with less regard for it’s inhabitants.

And Mantis met Tony Stark, and tried not to cower in remembered terror.

There was a small amount of guilt, far outweighed by pride and an anger born of the knowledge that he should feel guilty, but refused too. There was love for a woman, and for a friend, but it was stifled beneath love for himself.  
Tony Stark felt like a less powerful, less motivated Ego.

But Gamora had spoken of PTSD, and misdirected anger, and how even when she and Nebula tried to kill each other, they did not hate. Thanos was coming, and Mantis would fight with Tony if she must.

* * *

 

After Thanos was defeated, The Guardians of the Galaxy were invited to visit earth, to meet the other Avengers.

She met Steve and Bucky, who nearly made her weep for all they endured, yet still managed to be kind and selfless. Natasha and Sam, brave and determined and quietly attracted to each other, but neither willing to make the first move. Rhodey, steadfast and loyal, and Bruce, a man conflicted but determined to help.

And Wanda.  
Mantis did weep for Wanda, who grew instantly concerned and tried to help by shielding her emotions. It worked, but without the overwhelming emotions, Mantis saw the things that Wanda had made peace with.

The bombing that killed her parents, lying trapped with a shell that could explode at any time. People who offered to help, only to torture and betray. The realisation that they had chosen the wrong side, and the determination to make amends. The loss of her twin, a grief that would never truly fade, an integral part of Wanda.

And another betrayal.

The man who was like Ego had felt guilt, and to alleviate it, decided that everyone else must also be to blame. Rather than look for a solution, he tried to force his ‘friends’ under the control of others. Not to take responsibility, but to escape it.  
He named Wanda a weapon, because she could not take off a suit of armour and walk away, and imprisoned her without a backward glance, convinced that he was blameless.

 

Seeing all that Wanda had endured, at the hands of one who never accepted the blame or consequences for any of it, Mantis felt _sheer_ , _**blinding**_ **_RAGE_**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's be real, Tony would either give Mantis the mother of all headaches, or flat out terrify her. His emotions are that much of a mess, and he tries very hard to pretend they don't exist


	12. Anti May/Happy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because I am NOT COOL with the implied May/Happy Hogan romance. 
> 
> Either May doesn't know that Peter almost died beneath a tonne of rubble because Happy couldn't be bothered to answer a phone call from the kid who had proven only days earlier that he was not staying out of trouble when people were in danger, or she's playing nice to avoid making things awkward for Peter.

May Parker did not like Tony Stark. She hadn’t been aware that the man with him was anything more than Tony Stark’s unfortunate driver, at first, but when she learned better, May Parker did not like Happy Hogan, either.

Yes, May had been thrilled the first time she met the infamous Iron Man. Here was someone who had personally come to offer her nephew an Internship at a prestigious company. Someone who recognised Peter’s genius and talent, and could foster it to opportunities that he would never get alone.  
So, May gritted her teeth through the sleazy remarks, playing the enthusiastic host so she didn’t spoil Peter’s chances. Peter seemed to genuinely look up to the man, despite Tony Stark basically vanishing from his life as soon as the paperwork was signed, despite his initial interest.

The Internship was a good thing, May knew, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t worry. A capricious CEO, a superior who didn’t seem to be aware of or willing to account for the needs of a growing teenager, no matter how precocious he was, and Peter dropping nearly all of his extra-curricular activities to focus on the Internship.

Peter had always struggled to refuse people, or put himself first. They weren’t _badly_ off, but May and Peter didn’t have cash to burn like some of his classmates, and having to constantly replace clothes and backpacks was starting to pinch. Peter might not feel comfortable turning down an Internship that actually paid more than a travel allowance.

Her kid’s rush to reassure May every time she tried to bring it up certainly didn’t inspire hope. All May could do was let her kid know that she would support him if he ever decided not to actually hire on after the Internship, or if he wanted to give it up to focus on school.

* * *

May Parker was furious when she discovered the truth.

Peter was fifteen! He hadn’t even finished High School! Peter was barely legal to apply for a learner’s permit! Who the hell thought that turning a kid who wasn’t even legal to vote into a Vigilante Superhero, especially in the wake of those Human Rights Violations masquerading as the Sokovia Accords, was a _good_ idea?

Apparently, Tony Stark did. Tony Stark also supported lying to a legal guardian, reckless endangerment, kidnapping and foisting someone you’d taken responsibility for off on an indifferent bodyguard/driver.

May didn’t think that Peter had intended to reveal as much as he did, in his panic to “reassure” her when she found his Spiderman suit. Peter was grounded for a month, and had to check in on her when he was out on patrol (May wasn’t inexperienced enough to think that guilt over a deserved punishment or respect for her would outweigh the drive to protect people. She’d been an EMT, after all).  
May remembered being a teenager; the lack of impulse control, the conviction that she was immortal, the belief that the only person she affected was herself… Tony Stark and Happy Hogan, on the other hand, were supposed to be responsible adults. They were supposed to know better.

Perhaps spending so long being untouchable due to Stark’s wealth and influence had made them think that they truly were beyond reproach.

May placed  most of the blame on Tony Stark, but Hogan attracted his fair share. Being the first point of contact for her kid, and making it more than clear that Peter didn’t matter to him? That Peter was an annoyance at best, and an idiot with no sense of priorities at worst?

If May didn’t think they’d bring her up on charges of assault, and had the lawyers to ensure she did time for it, a good tasering would have been the least of Hogan’s problems for the way he’d treated her kid.

When he started acting _nice_ to her? Concern for Peter, and a desire to ensure that he never had to suffer at the mercy of the System, was all that stopped May from punching Hogan in the face.

She’d seen the bumbling attempts of guys who never had to try to get women’s attention, on the rare occasion that they had to actually put forth effort. She’d also known the genuine love and respect of a relationship with Ben Parker, a good man who hadn’t deserved the mugging that took him from his family too soon. She wished Ben were here now, to give Peter a better role-model than the one he had. 

Ben and Hogan were not comparable.

* * *

Hogan was still Peter’s first contact, though he also had Tony Stark’s direct number now. May couldn’t antagonise Hogan, not without the possibility that one day Peter wouldn’t come home, and that no-one would give her so much as a few words of explanation.   
May was a low-income woman in a world of Powerful Men. She knew how to play the game, had played it all of her life, from pretending a girlfriend was just a ‘bestie’ to not pressing charges when a ‘compliment’ was no such thing. It wasn’t just her life on the line, now; May Parker could play along with the best of them.

So she smiled, and acted like Hogan wasn’t someone that she’d be happy to never lay eyes on again. May was polite, and never let on that she’d prefer to give Hogan a black eye than the time of day, and bided her time.

One day, when it wouldn’t endanger Peter, Hogan was going to feel the brunt of her fury, and it would be so _sweet_.

Then she’d go home and tell Mai Lei (Peter, bless him, hadn’t batted an eye when May introduced him to her new girlfriend) and they’d have a good laugh over dinner while waiting for Peter to return.

May knew her worth, and it didn’t involve being arm- or eye-candy for the first jerk who expressed interest.

 

 


	13. Damaged, but not quite Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am NOT OK with how the Russos played Thor and his well-deserved PTSD. Here's a better version

Thor was... not ok.

Truth be told, it had been a while since he could call himself well. Not since the death of his father, and perhaps even before that. It had been one long string of tragedies, one new loss after another, for too long.

By the time, Thor returned to Earth with Stormbreaker, he cared more about hurting Thanos, destroying everything Thanos might possibly care about, than he did about stopping the Mad Titan. It was a bad mindset, and one that did far more harm than good to the combined effort to stop Thanos. It was the same on The Garden, where rage overtook him again, and he beheaded Thanos rather than let the others interrogate him further.

* * *

Thor retreated to New Asgard, where the people were at least more durable if he lost himself to the rage again. He focused on training, on doing his best to lead the shattered remains of his people, on holding a collective pyre for all those who had been lost on Asgard and when the Children of Thanos attacked. For the first few months, he tried to move on.

But even that wasn’t enough.

It had been such a little thing. Thor had been talking to Valkyrie when she had raised a hand and snapped her fingers to emphasise a point.

Reality fell away, and all Thor could see was Thanos, smirking at Thor’s failure as he wiped out half the population of the universe. If Valkyrie had hesitated even a second longer than she did, Thor might have killed her. Fortunately, Valkyrie was a warrior herself, knew the signs of battle-trauma, and knocked him out before he could do more than stagger back and raise Stormbreaker.

Thor woke up with Korg and Miek standing watch. They had been gladiators for the Grandmaster for years, and had seen those who had lost themselves in rage to cope with the death they caused, or who had simply laid down and given up. They were best equipped to manage Thor, while Valkyrie took over the day-to-day tasks, until Thor could do it himself.

Thor wasn’t ready to admit it, but some part of him knew that he would never fully regain that ability. He knew how to lead in battle, but peacetime... somehow, he had always expected to have Loki, or his father, or Mother, to advise him while he learned the role of a peacetime leader. But that was no longer possible. Valkyrie had survived the Grandmaster’s court, and the death of her battle-sisters, and everything else the world had thrown at her. She was adaptable, and would do a better job that Thor could, at least for now.

As for Thor himself....

He stopped training, hoping that dulled reflexes and lack of practice would slow him down enough for the next unfortunate person who triggered him by accident to realise and escape. The added weight and semi-inebriation made him clumsy, but not quite so much to be unfunctional, just enough that if he tried to attack someone, he would fail.

Steve and Natasha were managing the remnants of the Avengers, working with Captain Marvel, Rocket and Nebula to keep an eye on any emerging threats. If the world needed Thor, broken and raging and out of practice as he was, Thor would answer.

Until then, Thor told himself that the world was safer with him in seclusion.

 

 


	14. Jane Foster Deserved Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know who would have been a great fit to help with time travel? The scientist who spent her entire academic life studying travel through space and time!

Jane had grieved when Erik was lost to the Snap, but obstacles tended to only make her more determined. With Darcy for emotional support and to remind her to eat and sleep, she put aside her work on the Bifrost and time-space travel between realms and focussed on what little research existed regarding the Infinity Stones.  
She had Erik’s notes on the Tesseract, and her own experience with the Aether, plus several days in Asgard’s library, when she had been limited in how much she could exert herself. Thor had preferred physical pursuits to academics, but he had been happy to discuss the research she found. Despite her life being at risk, those days had been some of the happiest…

Jane forced herself back to the present.

Most of the world’s experts of Quantum Physics, and the leaders in studies on Infinity Stones, had been lost in The Snap. Jane found that suspicious, at best, but at least it cut down on the amount of time she had to spend fighting for grants. (If it brought them back, Jane would happily go back to living off Ramen and cobbling equipment together out of store-bought parts)  
Jane knew a lot of hackers and counter-hackers, and employed several, especially after people actually started taking her seriously and wanted their name on her work. She sent out feelers to the survivors, and set them to winnowing through SHIELD’s dumped files, especially the HYDRA experiments, for every scrap of data to do with extra-terrestrial studies. The most trustworthy ones were sent to hack into Stark Industries discarded files about the ULTRON project, and Vision by association. With Tony Stark retired from being Iron Man, or at least focused predominantly on making things for himself, there were fewer safeguards on his old, discarded files.

A few other hackers were sent to chase up potential alien sightings, and make contact in the hopes of getting information from other parts of the galaxy. 

With that taken care of, Jane set her attention to fine-tuning a new scanner for Quantum and time-space travel.

It took five years, but she found one. In San Francisco, in a storage garage, a portal opened, and someone came through.

* * *

The time traveller was gone by the time Jane got there, but the residual traces were still there, and she followed them.

Scott Lang was confused and horrified at all he had missed, at what had happened, but he was absolutely down to do something about it. Darcy returned the rental car, Jane and Scott following in his beat-up old van, and they headed to the Avengers Compound.

Scott had a mastery in electrical engineering, a talent for putting MacGyvering and improvisation, and some knowledge of quantum physics thanks to his work with the Pyms. Jane had first-hand knowledge of infinity stones, a lifetime of work on Einstein-Rosen Bridges, and access to extensive research notes. By the time they reached the Compound, they had the basics of a workable plan.

Jane’s access codes, from when she and Thor had been co-habitating, were still in the system, and they got in without issue. Jane found the lab, still functional despite out-dated systems and a lack of use, and fired it up. Darcy started tracking the current location of the remaining Avengers, and Scott waited outside for them to come back.

* * *

Startling Captain America was probably a rare feat, but they managed it. Darcy’s social media account was probably going to explode with the amount of reactions, but that didn’t matter right now.

They were skeptical at the idea of time travel - understadable - and hesitant about using technology that hadn’t yet been tested. They listened, though, and gathered the others.

Thor had changed drastically in the years since the Snap, and froze when he saw her. They had separated amicably when Thor had left to search for information about the Infinity Stones, unable to say when or if he would be back and not wanting her to feel obligated to wait for him, but a part of Jane had never stopped loving him. “Hi, Thor.”

He shrunk into himself, reinforcing Jane’s suspicion of severe PTSD. Not that she could fault him for it; there was barely a person on the planet who wasn’t grieving or recovering from some kind of trauma, these days. “Jane. I… I didn’t-“

She stepped forward and took his hand. “Life has been unkind to you, hasn’t it?”

The defensive attitude that Thor had aimed at everyone else faded. “One might say that. Or they might say that I lost everything and became a shell.”

Jane had some familiarity with that. Being possessed by the Aether had been a constant battle to stop it from taking her over entirely, making her a passenger in her own body. “If I recall correctly, that’s how we met in the first place. I don’t know what happened, but I believe in you, and I don’t think that you’ve given up yet.”

There was a painful vulnerability in Thor’s voice, that of a man struggling to be confident in himself. “How do you know?”

Jane tried to project nonchalance. “You’re here, aren’t you? You’re alive, and we’re going to change it. Deal?”

Finally, Thor smiled, even if it was a shadow of it’s former brilliance. “Deal.”

Behind them, someone snickered. “Well, at least letting himself go didn’t change everything.”

Jane whirled around, fierce and angry. “One more fat-shaming joke, and the person voicing it gets punted out the nearest window! Thor, can you tell me what you discovered about the stones, and I’ll add it to my database.”

Thor followed her willingly, and submitted to a fierce hug from Darcy. Thor hadn’t found much, but there had been some helpful things useful information from Space Monks who had tried to replicate the effects of the Time Stone. Well, the ruins of what had been their temple, anyway. At least Jane knew a few things to avoid in her tests.

They lapsed into silence, Thor warring with himself over something. Finally, he looked at her, as serious as she had ever seen him. “I - you need to be careful around me. Certain things… I struggle to recognise friend from foe, and see only Thanos, telling me that I have failed.”

Jane nodded. “PTSD, I can’t say I’m surprised. What are your known triggers?”

Thor blinked, and Jane wanted to hit everyone who had treated him like he was broken or worthless. The Avengers, at the very least, should have known better. “Snapping fingers, so far as I know. I isolated myself, after I nearly killed Brunhilda, thinking she was Thanos. I thought, if I lacked my former skill and reflexes…”

Jane had exactly zero objections to the long hair and beard, as much as she had enjoyed the shorter version, too. Besides, she had dealt with enough comments on her appearance from ‘totally not hot enough to have Thor’s babies’ to ‘unprofessional clothing and not bothered with her appearance’ and all the other double standards that male scientists never had to deal with. She wasn’t about to judge him on some extra weight and whatever helped him get through the day. “Honestly, I’m kind of enjoying the Viking look. Besides, weight didn’t stop Volstagg from being a formidible warrior, if I recall correctly.”

He smiled briefly, the shy and almost boyish grin reserved exclusively for her. “Thank you. Seeing you alive gives me hope that this will work.”

Jane blushed. “We never let the seemingly-impossible stop us before. Why start now?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found it interesting that pretty much everyone who could have contributed to the time travel plan (The Pyms, Hope, Ava Starr and Bill Foster, Shuri, Jane Foster and Erik Selvig...) didn't show up in Endgame. Like, ALL OF THEM died in The Snap? That's a little suspicious, fam....


	15. Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some idiot tried to blame Wanda for Rhodey getting injured, claiming she must have made Vision misfire.  
> After banging my head against the desk, I wrote this.

When HYDRA’s experiments gave her powers, the first thing Wanda had done was whisper into Pietro’s mind, voicing her fears and doubts and everything HYDRA would have punished them for. She used it for other things, in the eighteen months between their recruitment and the Avenger’s attack on the base, always for things that it wasn’t safe to say out loud.

It took longer for Pietro to ‘ _speak_ ’ back, in the form of thinking as loudly as he could. Wanda never told her twin that it was like a mental shout, because he was trying, and that was the important thing. She never revealed the ability to Strucker, or any of the other agents.

It would have been of no use to them, anyway; Wanda needed a connection, strong and positive and emotional, to be able to ‘ _speak_ ’ to someone.

* * *

 

After Pietro died, Wanda stopped using mind-speech.

It brought back too many memories, and living in the Avenger’s Compound, there was less of a need to speak mind-to-mind when she could simply pick up the intercom or a phone, or seek them out in person. Besides, it made them uncomfortable. Steve had been gentle, non-accusing, when he explained that it felt invasive, and should only be done with permission.

Or in cases of absolute emergency, Sam and Rhodey clarified, like if coms were down on a mission and lives were at stake. Cases where necessity outweighed comfort. Passive awareness of her team-mates was fine, so she could alert the others if someone was in need of back-up, but no planting words or images unless there was no other option.

* * *

 

The next time Wanda ‘ _spoke_ ’ was in the aftermath of the Airport battle.

She was on the ground, disoriented and unable to stand from the sound waves War Machine had blasted her with. Vision’s cooler-than-body-temperature arms, and the swiftly-receding Awareness of Steve and Bucky, were the only thing holding back dark memories of explosions that led to those long, terrible days trapped in rubble and waiting for death. Stark-created missiles that sent chunks of tarmac and asphalt flying at her, the control tower collapsing toward Steve and Bucky… that would feature in Wanda’s nightmares for a long time. 

Far above her, Iron Man and War Machine (not Tony and Rhodey, not now, not after they locked her away and sent live missiles after her and her family) pursued the Quinjet across the sky, Sam hot on their tail.

Wanda could do nothing physical, now, that Vision would not see and counter, but perhaps… Vision had not removed his comm, and it crackled with War Machine’s voice. “Target his thrusters; turn him into a glider.”

**_What?_ **

How could War Machine ask that, when he knew that malfunctioning equipment was how Sam’s wingman and best friend had died, when Sam still had nightmares to rival Wanda’s over it? Fury filled her, but she shoved it aside. This was an emergency, and she could not fail again.

Sam was her friend, her older brother and protector in the same way Steve was, as Pietro had been. She loved him and wanted to protect him in turn. It was enough.

She linked her mind to Sam, just long enough to ‘ _shout_ ’ a single word.” _ **DODGE**_!”

She sagged in Vision’s grasp, and he twitched to look down at her. The lethal beam wavered only briefly, before cutting out, but Sam was already out of the way.

Then Rhodey was falling, and Sam cut off his escape to try and intercept. Wanda, still linked, saw Riley falling like Icarus in Sam’s mind, fair skin and ash-blond hair imposed over the steel of War Machine’s suit. She felt his desperation, heard his prayer that the suit would keep War Machine from dying on impact.

The pain of a repulser blast at point-blank range flung Wanda out of the connection and into blissful unconsciousness.

Wanda surrendered to the darkness, secure in the knowledge that Vision could insist on legal representation, and wouldn’t let them take her without due process. He might be new to how Humanity worked, but he was very firm on individual rights. Being on opposite sides wouldn’t change that, surely.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, miss me with the "Tony Stark is the only Avenger with PTSD!" bs.  
> I won't deny that Tony has PTSD, but so does Steve, Wanda and Sam, at the very least. Clint and Natasha, too, although they're better at hiding symptoms.


	16. Speeches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am not ok with Tony's rant at the beginning of Endgame.
> 
> Maybe it was the shock of a near-death experience, or Tony lashing out because he doesn't know how to deal with feelings, but that doesn't make it acceptable.

No one said a word as Tony finished his rant, glaring around the room as if he were some kind of Martyr delivering a speech of salvation. The hypocrisy was astounding, and while Steve hadn’t been to church in years, his Irish Catholic upbringing never truly went away, and it made him want to punch Tony all the more.

“Precious Freedoms”? Not everyone had Tony’s ability to buy their way out of trouble, and nothing would erase Steve’s memory of the nightmares Wanda suffered, from her freedom from the Raft all the way to the day she died in the Snap. “You weren’t there”? Well, which one of them had the ability to move around freely? Which of them were forced to spend years as fugitives, and still risked arrest or worse to come back and help? Steve had left Tony a way to contact him and a promise to be there if he ever did. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that Tony had decided to go running off into space with only a teenager and a sorcerer for back-up. (Really, _why_? From a tactical point, they had lost as soon as Thanos had the Time Stone, and the ability to undo any effort to stop him.)

Well, it mattered little now. Steve turned abruptly and left the room. Let Tony wallow and play the wronged victim while Pepper and Rhodey and Happy (all still alive and un-Snapped) fawned over him. Steve was done with that. He had put his anger at Tony behind him, but that didn't mean he was willing to be a placid target for the billionaire's many, many unresolved issues. Of course, Tony never had been any good at putting aside his emotional reactions to look at the bigger picture, especially when it meant accepting responsibility.

The cold night air was a welcome relief, and Steve closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He had been trying to avoid thinking about his losses, but seeing Tony surrounded by the people who loved him brought it all back. T’Challa and Shuri, who had become friends, despite how rarely they saw each other. Wanda, the little sister Steve had adored and failed to protect. Sam and Bucky, his lifeline and his rock, all now gone, literally so much dust in the wind. The thousands of others who had died fighting Thanos's army even before the Snap that claimed untold lives across the universe.

Footsteps sounded behind him, awkwardness almost palatable in the air. “All that stuff Tony said… it wasn’t true. You know that, right?”

Steve managed not to scoff. Catholic guilt wasn’t quite so ingrained that he went looking for things to feel guilty about, especially when the blame should be rightfully shared around. Steve felt guilty for actually trusting Tony to act like a rational grown-up, but that didn’t mean he was about to curl up in corner, shave his head and fast for Forgiveness. He turned around, meeting Rhodey’s eyes. “Of course I know that. Just like I know that Tony lashes out whenever he feels like he’s failed, or wants to avoid actually facing his emotions.”

Rhodey gave a half-grin, like Steve’s acknowledgement made everything ok again. Steve supposed that was a little his own fault, for letting a half-assed apology be the end of things in the past. Unfortunately for Rhodey, Steve didn’t feel like letting him, or Tony, off that easily, and continued before Rhodey could pass on some empty platitude. “But he believes it, and I’m done wasting my breath trying to convince the Great and All-Knowing Tony Stark that he might be wrong about something.”

Rhodey winced. “Cap…”

Before, Steve would have allowed a rueful grin, commiseration about friends who’d eat live coals before they talked about emotions (getting sentiment out of Tasha was like pulling teeth). Not now. “He’s got you, Pepper, Happy… he’ll be fine. But I’m done being his punching bag.”

Yes, Tony had come close to dying, just like all of them had. But he survived. His chosen family survived. The Avengers had cared enough to send Captain Marvel looking for him. Through some narrative comedy that resisted Tony suffering consequences like the rest of them, Tony had lost nothing.

Steve had lost everything except Natasha. He could at least keep his self respect.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wrote this when Endgame first came out, and posted it on Tumblr, but forgot to cross-post here until EmCicero reminded my by requesting it.
> 
> You can thank them for an early update.


End file.
